The Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser

Welcome to 5-10-15-20, where we talk to artists about the music they loved at five-year interval points in their lives. Maybe we'll get a detailed roadmap of how their tastes and passions helped make them who they are. Maybe we'll just learn that they really liked hearing the "Rescue Rangers" theme song over and over when they were kids. Either way, it'll be fun.

For this edition, we checked in with Walkmen singer Hamilton Leithauser, 32. His band's new album, Lisbon, recently received our Best New Music distinction and is out now on Fat Possum.

When I was a kid, my friends and I had these single-tape recorders-- this was before dual-cassette recorders. They were like Dictaphones. So we took our one copy of Thriller on cassette and put it into one player and then put a blank tape into another one, put them on top of each other and hit record. We would sit there the whole time and then listen to it over and over-- there would be dogs barking and parents talking and little kids telling each other to shut up in the background. It sounded terrible, but that was my copy.

I don't even know how I got this album because I would have been too scared to buy it. It was really scandalous, and you had to hide it from your parents. I didn't even know what he was talking about half of the time but still knew it was really bad. That was when it was a big deal to be scared of rappers, and all the new rappers that came out were trying to out-badass the next guy. You listen to The Iceberg now, and it's just terrible. So bad. But, as a 10-year-old kid, it was fun to have something to stuff under your mattress. I had to listen to it really quietly at home.

That's when I got my first guitar, which was a white Squier Stratocaster, and I started taking lessons from this dude Carl Peachey, who actually taught Paul [Maroon] and Pete [Bauer] from the Walkmen, too. Carl was the neighborhood guy. I would go over to his house on Sundays and he would always be a little hung over after playing some really late show the night before. He'd be sitting there quietly drinking tea. The first thing I wanted to do was learn all these Jimi Hendrix songs-- I can't imagine anything more painful than having to teach a Hendrix song to a kid who's played the guitar three weeks. But he would slowly teach me. It took me so long to get through one lick.

Pitchfork: Did you play any other instruments in high school?

No, but I joined the glee club-- my voice was more angelic back then. I liked it a lot, even though it was really not popular to be doing that at an all-boys school. That was the first time I really sang. We did "My Fair Lady" one time. Damien Kulash, the singer from OK Go, was also in that same glee club. But then I tried out for the Magicals-- which was like the elite glee club-- and they axed me.

My old band the Recoys used to cover that, which was such a bad idea. The whole song is just a guy talking, basically. I just can't believe I ever tried to imitate that. But I do remember getting off stage and people would always come up to me and be like, "Man, I really love that 'I'm Straight' song." I'd always be like, "Goddammit, it's the one that isn't ours."

When I heard that song, it was like listening to this 20-something guy who's really earnest but also a total badass. It just really hit home with me. I almost met Jonathan Richman once. It was at a show where he was opening for Randy Newman. I went to shake Randy Newman's hand but missed Jonathan Richman as he walked out.

The first side of Tattoo You is not so hot, but the second side is one of the best things the Stones ever did. For some reason, I had missed it over the years even though I was a big Stones fan. My runner-up for this age was Trouble in Paradise by Randy Newman, which is such a funny-sounding thing.

Pitchfork: Both the Stones and Randy Newman have obviously been around forever. Do you ever think about whether you'll want to be playing music in your 50s?

Now that somebody enlightened me to the fact that the Walkmen have been around for 10 years, it's definitely something I think about. But if you think about it too much it gets depressing. I'm really happy with where we are now; it hasn't been easy to be out this long.__
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I saw Chuck Berry when I was 17 with Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Those other guys had a very polished, Vegas-y kind of show. But when Chuck got out there, he would just start playing "Maybellene" really fast and the other guys in his band would have to pick up. And then mid-song he'd just change keys and start singing "Johnny B. Goode" and the band was scrambling.

But then I saw the Berry documentary Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll a couple years ago and realized he just shows up to shows with his guitar. He never meets his band beforehand and he gives them an extra thousand dollars if he likes them. It's pretty funny to watch. He was like required classic rock when I was younger but, as I get older, I began to recognize his personality. I just like him more and more.